No Sacrifice
by Servant of Fire
Summary: Tag to Season 8 Finale "Sacrifice": Sam's thoughts when Dean tells him he'll die for curing Crowley. Based on the song by Elton John.


**No Sacrifice:**

"If you finish this trial, you're dead, Sam." Dean sounded so sure.

Sam felt a smile curl around his heart. A snicker of bitterness that gripped every muscle in his ruined body and gave it a hard jerk. What a fool his brother was. And yet, what a precious soul Dean was. He was so much more human than Sam at this moment. Hanging on with both hands to the little brother he had preserved for too long.

"So?"

It was no sacrifice.

Oh, but Dean acted like it was.

Sam's heart danced around the idea that this could be the end.

It finally seemed like the right time.

He felt it rise in him again. That old shadow that had been present always. He'd never known any different. A child, a man. A student, a murderous blood drinker. The destroyer and savior of the world all in a second. He had never been free of that curse put in his blood from his cradle, waltzing about his feet all the way to his grave.

He smelled the scent of Jessica's hair linger on his neck as she kissed him. Felt the shadow lift for a second when Jake Talley stabbed him in the back. He was looking down on it all for a moment then. It looked better from the outside.

That peace that came only by pain. All the memories that swirled around him in this moment of his final act. He was losing direction. Lost in the swirl of a life slipping away, he was more than okay. He thought it should be flashing. Rather they were a school of fish swimming before his eyes caught in his tears.

He shivered, uncertain for a moment by the look in his brother's eyes. This sensitivity to pain that was at last crackling free from the fire of his damnation. There felt like a mutual misunderstanding had happened between them too long ago to fully remember the breach. It didn't matter to Sam now. His heart was frozen and torched. Hard done by Dean's indifference.

Was he going to die?

That was no sacrifice.

Why did Dean look so horrified?

Like he cared.

Fundamentally, he didn't right?

It had been different between them since his true nature had been revealed. He was the screw up whose agency didn't matter. His sacrifices didn't matter. If they had, then Dean would have seen that Sam was sacrificing himself to save and avenge his brother when he'd done away with Lilith, right? He would have known that everything Sam had done since he'd left Jessica in the Impala's rearview mirror had been for Dean. So that he wouldn't have to face these yawning gates of Hell alone.

Didn't Dean know how done he was with everything? How tired?

Why would he want him to live now?

What the hell was he looking all sorry like that for?

Dean had told him he was a monster all those years ago. All those years ago he was done saving him. What had changed?

It might not be fair. Maybe he thought his love was superior in this instant. Sam wasn't done saving Dean. He had after all taken on these trials to keep Dean from going on a kamikaze mission, hadn't he? He'd jumped into Hell to essentially fix the betrayal Dean perceived by his accidentally releasing the predestined Devil from his cage. The final act had been catalyzed by the need to save Dean right at that moment, hadn't it? Then, when he could have stayed comatose after Castiel shattered his wall, he chose to remember Hell to join Dean in the fight again.

Dean was a fool if he couldn't see it. Those things, those self-destructing odysseys were his sacrifices. Acting against his brother's will to save him from things he couldn't understand because he was purely human. Those were sacrifices. But this...This was something sweet and selfish. Something like a final prize for all the rest, if he could just grasp it.

Sam was begging his brother to believe him now. That they could be two hearts living in two separate worlds when this was done. When he was done. He could close Hell up behind them for the last time. It could be better. He could be better. Rise up from here. Pass on through that shadow to something on the outside. Something better.

"So?"

Leaving this world was no sacrifice at all. Not for Sam.

"I can't do it without you." Dean is begging him, but it's all just words. Sam feels his confessions slipping through his lips, but he can't hear them. Dean had muted any heart-to-heart they could have had a long time ago. What was he saying? All just words. Pointless growls coming from the belly of a dying beast.

No sacrifice…

"It has never been like that!" Dean's voice rises above the chaos in Sam's mind. He was adamant. Fierce. Protective. It was a burning jealous that shot Sam's heart like a meteor. Was that…? Sam had forgotten what that had felt like. Sought that feeling in the sweet deceit of Ruby and the fragile arms of Amelia. All of his supposed betrayals just searching for what he had just felt, what he had just heard. For the family love, the purely fraternal affection that had no equal counterpart no matter where he searched for it.

Was Dean confessing this love for his little brother after everything?

"So…"

 _So, this is what it feels like?_

 _So, maybe he could need me actually._

 _So, maybe I'm not evil._

 _So, maybe he can really love me just the way I am._

"How do I stop?"

Sam heard himself before he was certain that he wanted to. Because he realized essentially that this part was a sacrifice. That he was coming back to the world that despised him with a justified hatred. He was picking up the burden of a personage that had damned him long before he'd had a choice in who he wanted to be.

This...Coming back to Dean was a sacrifice. Letting him hold him, save him was his sacrifice. Because Sam was so ready to be done with the suffering that his life had been always.

He would never tell Dean, but when he felt that eruption of pain in his stomach after everything, he was actually exhilarated. Because if he couldn't stop it then it wasn't his fault, was it? Dean couldn't hold it against him if he didn't leave him on purpose, could he?

Was Sam safe at last? He was smiling behind Dean's shoulder, even as he was screaming in pain.

Because this was no sacrifice. This was a benediction. He'd been begging for it all his life. A higher power reaching down and plucking him out of the fire. A final gospel to rapture him with foreign hope. So he never need wonder if what he was feeling was love again.

Had he found it now?


End file.
